Method of making welting



May 13, 1941. w. c. VIZARD- 2,241,652

' METHOD OF MAKING WELTING Filed June 22, 1940 Patented May 13, 1941METHOD OF MAKING WELTIN'G.

William C. Vizard, Brockton, Mass, assignor to Barbour Welting Company,Brockton, Mass, a co-partnership composed of Perley E. Barbour, WalterG. Barbour, and Richard H; Barbour Application June 22, 1940, Serial-No.341,871

8' Claims.

This invention relates to the manufacture of beaded welting for shoesand more especially to an improved method of manufacture of such weltingwherein the cost of production is reduced through savings in the amountof welting material required.

The common practice in the art is to form the beads by slitting theinner marginal portions of fillets of the welting material to form flapswhich flaps are folded between their ends to form the beads, the latterbeing supported and held in position at the inner edges of the weltextensions by integral portions of the flaps applied to the inner marginor sewing'edges of the welts.

Those skilled in the art are aware that in order to give the flapsufiicient width to form the bead, and to extend over the inner marginof the welt, the process of manufacture must be initiated with a weltstrip having greater width than the finished welting. In my prior UnitedStates patents, No. 2,142,228, dated January 3, 1939, and No. 2,153,321,dated April 4, 1939, I have disclosed two methods for utilizing a doublefillet which by means of novel severing cuts are divided into singlewelt strips each having sufiicient width for the formation of a suitableflap, in both cases the double fillets being narrower than the combinedwidths of the single welt strips formed therefrom. In this way I havebeen able to effect great savings in the cost of manufacture of beadedwelting as, where thousands and even millions of yards of the welting ismade, the reduction of the width of the fillet even by a fraction of aninch will result in substantial reductions in cost.

The beaded welting produced in accordance with my prior patents abovenoted is intended primarily, although not necessarily exclusively, foruse in Goodyear welt shoes and for this purpose is provided with arelatively narrow thick inseam edge. The welting of the presentinvention is intended primarily for use in that type of shoe known as aMcKay welt shoe and in certain aspects may be regarded as an improvementover my prior patents wherein I am able to obtain savings in stockwhile'providing for the relatively wide Wedge-like sewing edge requiredin the McKay welt type of shoe.

One of the principal objects of the present invention is to bring aboutan improved method of severing and slitting a double fiuet of weltingmaterial wherein two welt strips may be formed each being suitable foruse in the manufacture of beaded McKay welting, the combined widths ofthe strips being markedly greater than the width of the double filletfrom which they are made.

A feature of the invention resides in a simple method of severing andslitting the double'fillet to form the single welt strips wherein eachstrip may be provided with a flap and'a body suitable for molding intobeaded welting having the desired sewing edge and without removal of anyof the material of thestrips' or other intermediate steps.

To these and other ends the invention resides in the novel features andcombinations of steps to be hereinafter more fully described.

In the drawing,

Figure 1 is illustrative of the first step in severing a double. fillet,in accordance with the. invention, intotwo welt strips by a multi-partout;

Figures 2 and 3 are illustrative of the further treatment of the weltstrips at the left and right respectively of Figure 1 preparatory toforming up the beads therein, and

Figures 4 and 5am illustrative of the novel beaded welting after finalmolding of the welt strips at the left and right of Figure 1respectively.

The best grades of welting, including beaded welting, are made of grainleather and while the advantages gained from the present invention aremore marked and the same is illustrated in connection with itsapplication to grain leather welting nevertheless those skilled in theart will understand that the invention is by no means limited theretobut is of great importance and effects large savings when applied toother and less costly types of welting materials. Thus while in thedescription of the invention the upper face ll] of the double fillet IIof Figure l is referred to as the grain face'and the bottom face H asthe flesh face, it will be understood that such reference is forconvenience only and is not to be taken as a limitation of the inventionto the use of grain leather.

In accordance with the invention, the double fillet H is severedlongitudinally and generally centrallyof its width, as indicated at l3(Figure 1), to produce two single welt strips I4 (left) and I5 (right).This severance is accomplished by a five-bar cut including a central barl6 which lies between and is parallel to the grain and flesh faces I0and I2 and an end bar I! at the right hand end of bar I6, the bar llcurving upwardly away from the end of bar It and emerging at the grainface I 0 in a direction somewhat sharply inclined to the plane of saidface. The

severance is completed by a relatively short bar l3 extending towardsthe flesh face l2 at right angles to and at the left end of bar IS, thebar l8 terminating at its lower end at another relatively short bar l9extending inwardly parallel to the bar It and joining at its inner end adownwardly and inwardly extending bar 20 emerges through the flesh face[2 at a sharp angle and substantially midway between the side edges 2!and 22 of the fillet.

It will be observed that the cuts described above leave the welt strip Mwith an upper grain surface extending from edge to edge while the weltstrip is provided with a grain surface extending from its outside edge22 to the shoulder 23 formed by the cut I'l. As the bars [6, H and 20form the principal parts of the severance cut, the latter may be treatedgenerally as a three part cut, the cuts l8 and l9 acting to givedefiniteness to the inside edge of the welt strip l5 as well as tolocate the position of the bead core of strip M as will appearhereinafter.

To prepare the welt strip [4 for forming up into a beaded welt, asillustrated in Figure 4, a single further cutting operation isnecessary. This additional out forms an extension of the cuts previouslymade therein and includes a bar 24 extending downwardly towards theflesh face and forming a continuation of the out It, a bar 25 curvingupwardly and outwardly towards the grain face from the lower end of bar24 and a bar 26 lying between and parallel to the grain and flesh facesin the plane of out It, the cut formed by the bar 26 terminatingsubstantially at the inner edge of the welt extension.

The several cuts described above form a flap 21 on the welt strip Mwhich flap has an integral bead core 28 on its under side, the cut 26not only forming a cover strip 29 for the bead core 28 but forming ashelf in the welt body on which the core may be seated as it is foldedin the cover strip. The bead is formed up by opening the flap away fromthe body of the welt strip and applying cement to the internal surfaceswhereupon the strip may be passed through a molding machine, the latterfolding the core in the cover strip 29 while seating the bead core 28 onthe shelf 30, the inseam edge portion 3!, of the flap, being applied tothe inner margin 32 of the welt body. The extreme end of the flap isseated in the groove produced by the cuts forming the bead core, themolding machine pressing the thin edge of the flap into contact with andfilling the groove so that the inner margin of the finished welting hasthe Wedge-like shape characteristic of McKay welting.

The welt strip I5 is prepared for forming up of the bead by a singlefurther out consisting of a bar 33 extending inwardly from the inneredge of the welt extension, the bar 33 lying between and being parallelto the grain and flesh faces substantially in the plane of the cut IS,the bar 33 terminating at its inner end at a bar 34 which extendsdownwardly and inwardly at an angle of about 45 to the grain and fleshfaces, the bar 34 terminatingat a bar 35 extending at an acute angle tothe flesh face and emerging through the latter at the point where thecut 20 passes through the flesh face. This further cutting of the stripl5 forms a bead core 35 on the under side of the flap 3'! together witha cover strip 38 for the bead core, and inseam edge part 39 which may beapplied to the inner'margin 40 of the welt strip body. As in the case ofwelt strip I4, the molding machine not only forms up and sets the beadbut presses the inseam edge of the flap into contact with the innermargin of the welt body, forcing the relatively thin extreme edge of theflap into contact with the welt strip body and otherwise forming awedge-like inseam edge on the welting. While the welting formed from thewelt strip I4 is provided with a welt extension, bead and inseam edgeeach having a grain leather surface it will be noted that only theextension and bead of the welting formed from strip I5 are provided withgrain surfaces, the inseam portion of said welting having a fleshsurface.

The point where the cut 20 passes through the flesh face I2 defines theinner marginal edges of both strips of welting after forming up of thebeads and it will thus be noted that the width of the double fillet isreduced to a minimum being no greater than the combined widths of thefinished strips of welting.

The drawing illustrates a double fillet and severance cuts-suitable forthe formation of two A of an inch strands of beaded welting, the cut I!emerging through the grain face ID at a distance of about of an inchfrom the left edge 2i of the fillet. The cut l6 may be about 5% of aninch from the grain face and the other cuts in proportion. Those skilledin the art will be able to adapt the principles of the invention toother sizes of welting.

While a preferred embodiment of the invention is described herein indetail in order that those skilled in the art may fully understand thenature of the invention and its mode of application it will beunderstood that the invention in its application is capable of variationand modification within the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. The method of producing two welt strips from a double fillet of lesswidth than the combined width of stock in single fillets required forthe two beaded welts made from said strips, each strip being of greateroverall width than one half of the width of the fillet and each having aflange along one edge adapted for cutting a flap for forming up into alongitudinal bead within the edges of the severed strip, comprisingsevering the fillet longitudinally by a cut formed by a buried centerbar lying in a plane parallel to both faces of the fillet, a bar at oneend thereof emerging at one face of the fillet and in a directioninclined to said face and away from said end of the center bar and a barat the other end of the center bar emerging at the opposite face of thefillet and extending in a direction inclined with respect to said faceand towards the opposite end of the center bar.

2. The method according to claim 1 in which one of said end bars emergesalong a line defining the overall width of the beaded welts to be formedfrom the welt strips.

3. The method according to claim 1 in which the end bars define theoverall widths of the two welt strips and the point of emergence of oneof said end bars defines the overall width of the beaded welts to beformed from the strips.

4. The method according to claim 1 in which the ends of the center bardefine the ends of the two welt strips.

5. The method according to claim 1 in which at least one of the end barsis curved and presents its concave side towards the bottom face of thefillet.

6. The method of producing two welt strips from a double fillet of lesswidth than the combined width of stock in single fillets required forthe two beaded welts made from said strips, each strip being of greateroverall width than one half of the Width of the fillet and each having aflange along one edge adapted for cutting a flap for forming up into alongitudinal bead within the edges of the severed strip, comprisingsevering the fillet longitudinally by a cut formed by a buried centerbar lying in a plane substantially parallel to both faces of the fillet,a bar at one end thereof emerging at one face of the fillet and in adirection sharply inclined with respect to said face and in a directionaway from said end of the center bar and a bar at the other 10 thebottom face of the fillet.

WILLIAM C. VIZARD.

